I am sure that the Leader will agree that public art in Oldham borough has had a chequered past?

Indeed I am proud that as Leader I got rid of the awful water feature in our town centre that had never worked and was a blight on our high street and an embarrassment to the Council and shoppers alike.

We will all welcome the sight of Metrolink trams running along Union Street, and we all want a good built environment, but at a time of austerity and cuts in services, isn’t it madness to spend up to half a million pounds on public art and statues?

Oldham’s Council Tax Payers, already hit in the pocket with a 3.5% rise from April, have different priorities for their hard-earned money and will simply see this as a wasteful indulgence and extravagance on the part of this Labour Administration that we can ill afford.

Howard Sykes
6th Feb 2013